According to the World Health Organization, depression is the leading cause of disability and the fourth leading contributor to the global burden of disease, projected to reach second place by 2020. There is also strong evidence that it is an independent risk factor for heart disease, and several studies show that prolonged depression is associated with selective and possibly permanent damage to the hippocampus, a region of the brain critical to memory and learning.
Add the fact that 2 percent to 12 percent of depressed people eventually commit suicide, and the [supposed evolutionary] “advantages” of depression suddenly don’t look so good....
What is natural, the thinking goes, is best. If we are designed to suffer depression in response to life’s ills, there must be a good reason for it, and we should allow it to take its painful and natural course.
But unlike ordinary sadness, the natural course of depression can be devastating and lethal. And while sadness is useful, clinical depression signals a failure to adapt to stress or loss, because it impairs a person’s ability to solve the very dilemmas that triggered it.
Even if depression is “natural” and evolved from an emotional state that might once have given us some advantage, that doesn’t make it any more desirable than other maladies. Nature offers us cancer, infections and heart disease, which we happily avoid and do our best to treat. Depression is no different.

All outpatients were included in this study in which, between 1993-2000, with the same [confirmed] guideline for chronic neuropathy, the diagnosis CIAP was made....We evaluated the clinical course in all patients and repeated questions on the family history. We...re-examined these patients. After recording these data, we decided whether or not the neuropathy remained idiopathic.

A total of 478 outpatients had been evaluated, of these 53 were diagnosed as CIAP. Of these the diagnosis remained CIAP in 27 (51%) patients. In 19 (36%) of the patients a wrong diagnosis was made, explained by not following the diagnostic guideline, and by not recognising hereditary neuropathies.

In half of the patients with the diagnosis CIAP, this diagnosis was changed after revision, including the family history of neuropathies. Therefore, in patients with the diagnosis CIAP, this diagnosis should be reconsidered. In addition the question should be whether the hereditary neuropathies have been excluded.

[Six men age 30-65, overweight but otherwise healthy, consumed 2 tablespoons of culinary spices—rosemary, oregano, cinnamon, turmeric, black pepper, cloves, garlic powder and paprika—in each serving of a test meal of chicken curry, Italian herb bread, and a cinnamon biscuit, or an otherwise identical control meal without the spices.]
"We selected [spices that had shown] potent antioxidant activity previously under controlled conditions in the lab."
[The spices increased antioxidant activity in the blood by 13% and decreased insulin response decreased by about 20%.]
Oxidative stress contributes to heart disease, arthritis and diabetes. [The spice dose used provided equivalent antioxidants to those in 5 oz. red wine or 1.4 oz. dark chocolate.]
Adding 2 tablespoons of spices to meals did not cause stomach upset in the participants. "They enjoyed the food and had no gastrointestinal problems...The participants were notified ahead of time that they would be eating highly spiced foods..."

Even though chronic idiopathic axonal polyneuropathy has been clearly described and delineated, no adequate randomised or quasi-randomised controlled clinical treatment trials have been performed. In their absence there is no proven efficacious drug therapy.

Asthma (AZ-ma) is a chronic (long-term) lung disease that inflames and narrows the airways. Asthma causes recurring periods of wheezing (a whistling sound when you breathe), chest tightness, shortness of breath, and coughing. The coughing often occurs at night or early in the morning. <br />
Asthma affects people of all ages, but it most often starts during childhood. In the United States, more than 22 million people are known to have asthma. Nearly 6 million of these people are children.... <br />
People who have asthma have inflamed airways. This makes the airways swollen and very sensitive. They tend to react strongly to certain inhaled substances. <br />
When the airways react, the muscles around them tighten. This narrows the airways, causing less air to flow into the lungs. The swelling also can worsen, making the airways even narrower. Cells in the airways may make more mucus than normal.... <br />
This chain reaction can result in asthma symptoms.

The stethoscope let doctors realize that what had been thought of as 17 conditions—like coughing up blood and shortness of breath—could all be different symptoms of the same disease, tuberculosis. <br />
“The advent of the stethoscope made it possible to unify tuberculosis,” said Dr. Jacalyn Duffin, a professor of the history of medicine at Queen's University in Ontario. <br />
The shift from symptoms to anatomical measurements had big implications for patients[, said Dr. Duffin:] “Up until the 18th century, you had to feel sick to be sick"...But now people can be considered sick based on measurements like high blood pressure without feeling ill at all. <br />
Indeed, Dr. Duffin said, people who feel sick nowadays “don’t get to have a disease unless the doctor can find something” and instead might be told that it’s all in their head. Doctors argue, for instance, about whether fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome, which have no obvious anatomical causes, are really diseases.

The way primary care is organized and reimbursed by insurance companies probably serves as a barrier to achieving optimal blood glucose control....
Before [Maine's] program existed, 80% of people with diabetes had received an HbA1c test within the past year. After a year, 93% of people had received one. The percentage of people with HbA1c values less than 7% rose from 41% to 49%—a 20% increase. The percentage of people with HbA1c values above 8% decreased from 31% to 24%, and the percentage of people with HbA1c values above 9.5% decreased from 13% to 9%. There were similar results in measures of LDL (or “bad”) cholesterol and blood pressure.
“This is not a question of bad doctors or bad patients...It is a question of a care model that is focused on illness instead of prevention, and systems that have been created that don’t accommodate a change in focus. We’re changing the focus, including offering financial incentives for physicians whose patients do better.”

Dr. Schillinger published three papers in conjunction with the U.S. - Mexico Border Diabetes Prevention and Control Project that focus on the development of a viable diabetes prevention and control program for the specific needs of the border population. [Hypertension] [Undiagnosed Diabetes] [Smoking] Additionally, the team recently published two papers with Kaiser Permanente which demonstrated: 1) people with diabetes who have limited health literacy are at higher risk for hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) [Diabetes Health] [Santa Cruz Sentinel] and, 2) patients who cannot communicate in their own language with their physician may have poorer outcomes. [UCSF Public Affairs] Drs. Seligman and Schillinger also published an editorial about the burden of hunger and chronic disease that was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. [NEJM] [UCSF Public Affairs]

'Thirty employers in 10 cities waived co-payments for diabetes medications and supplies if participants met regularly with a specially trained pharmacist "coach" who helped them track their A1c, blood pressure and cholesterol and manage their disease through exercise, nutrition and other lifestyle changes. Pharmacists communicated with physicians after every visit and referred patients to other health care providers for additional care or education as needed...."The [program] provides a promising collaborative care model that blends important elements of a 'reformed' health care delivery process by integrating accessibility, patient-centeredness and value achieved by helping patients to make clinical improvements while managing costs"...
[Earlier programs have] tested the pharmacist-coach model for managing chronic diseases such as asthma, cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol and osteoporosis. [Similar programs will be available nationwide through employers using] HealthMapRx.

Lower weight at birth may increase inflammatory processes in adulthood, which are associated with chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes...Both the fetal and infancy periods are sensitive, critical stages of growth and development. Studies have previously suggested babies with lower weight at birth are at a higher risk for developing chronic diseases...[A]n association between lower weight at birth and inflammation in adulthood may provide [an] explanation.
Inflammation is a normal physiologic response of the body, and serves as a host defense which provides protective response to infection or tissue injury. If the source of infection or injury is not repressed, low-grade inflammation can persist and may promote the development of heart disease or diabetes.
Earlier studies have found that babies born small for gestational age have weak immune systems, but at six years old have more white blood cells than babies born at a normal weight.

'The usual-care group [averaged 3.49 lost] work days per year. The lifestyle intervention group lost 0.92 work days...ICAN reduced the probability of lost work days by 64.3%. Disability and physical limitation days were used at a rate of 5.3 days for the usual-care group and 0.94 days for the lifestyle intervention group...[T]he probability of disability days [diminished] by 87.2%. Depression, a strong predictor of work days lost due to diabetes and obesity, resulted in an average of 6.6 missed work days per year for the usual- care participants and 1.7 missed work days for the lifestyle intervention participants. Results were similar for depression’s impact on disability days lost..."[I]f we calculate the return on investment (ROI) based on program costs, savings from averted days missed at work and with disability and physical limitations, the ROI was $2.67 [per dollar invested]...and this does not include the cost savings seen by reducing medical costs—a result we reported earlier.”